Vidor Puppies!

Congratulations to Carolyn and Vidor Vizslas in Michigan on 8 beautiful puppies from Lenke and Ivan!

Lenke is imported from Hungary,and has impressive field testing credentials from her homeland. She already has some pups here in the US, as well as in several European countries, Australia and Canada. Her offspring, although still young, are excelling in the show ring, and in the field. Ivan is from the highly successful Zoldmali kennels in Hungary. Excellent puppies with great hunting potential are expected from this combination.

These pups have been sold long ago, but I am very happy to make this announcement. I know one of these pups will be heading to Virginia, so I look forward to watching him/her grow up!

Love this time of year!

It was such a spectacular September day here, I just had to take a few pictures and share them here. In this one, Winnie is using that great HWV nose to sample a breeze.

Not much training today. But Winnie enjoys just wandering around while I'm working in the yard.

A well earned break after a hard day's work!

We weren't the only ones out enjoying the day!

In Support of Zoldmali Kennel

I have the utmost respect for our friend Zsofia of Zoldmali Kennel. Zsofia is one of the most successful Vizsla trainers in Hungary, and the dogs that come out of her breeding and training programs are among the very best Wirehaired Vizslas in the world. Her well-deserved reputation is far reaching - well beyond that of this humble blog - but I wanted to take this opportunity to inform the readers I do have of an ongoing dispute involving Zoldmali.

Please click here to read Zsofia's account of the dispute, involving a dog named Arany. I won't attempt to provide a brief and clear synopsis of the situation here, but wanted to declare my support of Zsofia. She wants what's best for the breed, and for every dog she breeds and trains. And she knows what's best for Arany.

Burr Removal

This face full of burrs is not a particularly bad case. But they were a little stubborn so I decided to try a little trick someone suggested to me.

ShowSheen is a horse grooming product that makes a horse's coat shiny and gets tangles out. I think some people spray it on their dogs before they go into a burr-heavy situation. But after the fact, I had great success by simply spraying it onto the edge of this stripping knife and running it through the affected area. The burrs came right out!

Oktoberfest II

We braved a steady, cool rain to bring the dogs to our town's annual Oktoberfest celebration. As usual, there were many creative guesses as to what kind of dog Winnie was. Irish Wolfhound mix, Labrodoodle, Griffon, German Wirehair were the ones I remember. I overheard one person say, "is that a Hungarian Vizsla?" Even without the 'Wirehaired,' I turned around, ready to praise the first person with a guess including 'Hungarian' or 'Vizsla.' But it turns out the woman was actually talking about my neighbor's chocolate lab.

Flashback: Last year's Oktoberfest was Winnie's first public debut. Setting the early tone for our lives together, we both handled ourselves with class and grace.

Here's the whole crew: Winnie, Gromit at the bar, and Mac, a spectacular specimen of a Labrador. Mac is an accomplished dog in the field and at stud. Unlike our dogs, Mac's tough, and would never be caught sipping bottled water out of a hand-held cup.

Gromit bellying up to the bar.

OOPS!! Okay Mac, we won't tell.

This is a dog that is ready to go home and warm up on the couch. At this point we were all in agreement! But we'll be back next year!